The present invention generally relates to a character recognition method, and more particularly to a character recognition method capable of correctly identifying characters which are arranged on a document with an undefined character pitch.
Generally, in an optical character reader, image data read from a document are segmented into image data of individual character lines by horizontal projection of the image data. Then each of the segmented character line images is segmented into individual character images in accordance with a fixed character pitch.
However, the above segmentation cannot correctly segment a character line image into individual character images in case where two or more characters are contained in one pitch or one character extends outside the one pitch. These problems cause a decrease in a character recognition rate, particularly for a document on which characters are arranged with an undefined character pitch, such as a name card and a magazine. Further, the use of the conventional segmentation is limited to a specific document in which characters are arranged a fixed character pitch.